"Pure" psychopathy doesn't exist as a formal diagnosis; anti-social personality disorder is about as close as you get, and it's difficult to diagnose among children if not impossible to seperate from persistently "bad" behaviour. Children are generally impulsive and egocentric anyway, which are hallmarks of psychopathic type disorders. Growing up is the socialisation process which changes this, plus, there's extensive neurological pruning that goes on in late adolescence that can quite markedly change an individual's personality generally (you may think the brain is constantly "evolving" to a singular final state, but actually, until late adolescence, it's experiencing a ton of differing and changing configurations before finally "settling" on a more-or-less fixed state for adulthood to senescence which is actually neurologically slightly less complex in terms of dendritic connections than that which came previously.).

As for treatment, there is none. It's a severe and sometimes dangerous personality disorder, and there's inherently relatively little that can be done for that, but, not all psychopaths are dangerous individuals per se - they simply don't care much about what happens to anyone but themselves, which does not necessarily make them an interpersonal threat. It's untreatable because a fairly key component of psychotherapies is a willingness to change, and when the problem is "you" as a whole, well....

In all, I'd guess this was a snappy bit of dialogue that the scriptwriters thought would sensationalise the plot and not much more. I'd guess that murders (i.e. a deliberate, premeditated crime of killing) conducted by children are generally so rare that they make the front page when it happens.

In all, I'd guess this was a snappy bit of dialogue that the scriptwriters thought would sensationalise the plot and not much more. I'd guess that murders (i.e. a deliberate, premeditated crime of killing) conducted by children are generally so rare that they make the front page when it happens.

Some psychopaths - if not all - are neurologically different from other people, they lack the part of the brain (or rather perhaps it just doesn't work) that allows them to experience, and thus recognise in others, pain, fear and suffering. I would imagine that your question could be answered if anyone could say whether this is a developmental issue or a genetic one.

It's also not entirely a stretch to say young children are potentially/partially psychopathic if they haven't developed any ability to empathise. Again, at what point in child development would children reasonably be expected to empathise? I'd imagine at quite a young age, to be honest, but I don't know for sure.

Some psychopaths - if not all - are neurologically different from other people, they lack the part of the brain (or rather perhaps it just doesn't work) that allows them to experience, and thus recognise in others, pain, fear and suffering.

Not really true. There's undoubtedly some kind of neurological involvement since the disorder is complex manifest behaviour(s), but it's extremely subtle - there's nothing to be found of major significance in anatomical or functional studies of the brains of psychopaths. There may well be a genetic component (i.e. a kink in the genome that screws up gross, normal neurological development), but there have been psychopaths (of the murderous kind) raised in perfectly normal family homes, and it doesn't seem to "run in families". There are some crossovers in emotional bluntness and impulsivity in survivors of severe frontal-lobe brain injuries (accompanied by very pronounced personality changes), but for "developmental" psychopaths, the causes might as well be completely idiopathic. It's also not impossible that weirdness in their formative years resulted in purely cognitive deficits.

Again, at what point in child development would children reasonably be expected to empathise? I'd imagine at quite a young age, to be honest, but I don't know for sure.

To take a guess maybe childern start empathising at three to five? But I'm not a child development expert.

Try 9 months. A 9 month old is able to fake laughs and cries to elicit a desired response from others, as well as refuse things she actually wants, just because someone else wants them to have it. All these behaviours require some degree of empathy.

By two years, they have it down to an art. My two year old is a lauded professional in this particular field.

These areas are important in understanding other people’s emotions and intentions and are activated when people think about moral behavior, the researchers noted. Damage to these areas is associated with impaired empathizing with other people, a poor response to fear and distress, and a lack of self-conscious emotions such as guilt or embarrassment.

So what would cause damage to these areas of the brain? Or in some people these areas simply do not develope?

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Try 9 months. A 9 month old is able to fake laughs and cries to elicit a desired response from others, as well as refuse things she actually wants, just because someone else wants them to have it. All these behaviours require some degree of empathy.

Now that you mention it, I have notice these behavers in babies as well.

So what would cause damage to these areas of the brain? Or in some people these areas simply do not develope?

I once spoke with a guy at a major and infamous psychiatric prison in the UK who reckoned it was forceps delivery at birth, causing minor frontal lobe lesions - in his opinion, it was the one thing everyone he had to assess at the "secure unit" had in common. However, he freely admitted he was sampling from a "pre-selected" population rather than broadly and generally.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised at frontal lobe / pole deficits - as I mentioned above, anti-social personality changes are common enough in head injury populations. And again, the frontal lobes are very, very complicated bits of the brain where even minor physical deficits can result in radical beahvioural changes.

And again, the frontal lobes are very, very complicated bits of the brain where even minor physical deficits can result in radical beahvioural changes.

I'm wondering if in most psychopaths if certain areas of the brain simply do not develope propery. They don't learn empathy because they can't. In others it could by toxins (i.e. lead) during childhood.

Many things are possible, I suppose. However, there are also (apparently) psychopaths who don't appear to have neurological deficits; the article you linked tested a prisoner population. Developmental disorders tend to be pretty radical, though, and readily noticeable - whereas psychopathic tendencies, as I said, can be more subtle in the extent to which they're manifest as behaviours. Successful psychopaths (see : the CEO alpha male type asshole) apparently don't have e.g. intellectual deficits. They're successful mainly because they have no qualms about doing what they see as needing to be done, regardless of consequences. The murderous kind of psychopath is "merely" taking this to extremes.

The New York Times magazine had a long expose on precisely this topic a year ago. They extensively interviewed people involved in a summer camp for psycopathic children:

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Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5. Crucial to this diagnosis are callous-unemotional traits, which most researchers now believe distinguish “fledgling psychopaths” from children with ordinary conduct disorder, who are also impulsive and hard to control and exhibit hostile or violent behavior. According to some studies, roughly one-third of children with severe behavioral problems — like the aggressive disobedience that Michael displays — also test above normal on callous-unemotional traits. (Narcissism and impulsivity, which are part of the adult diagnostic criteria, are difficult to apply to children, who are narcissistic and impulsive by nature.)

In some children, C.U. traits manifest in obvious ways. Paul Frick, a psychologist at the University of New Orleans who has studied risk factors for psychopathy in children for two decades, described one boy who used a knife to cut off the tail of the family cat bit by bit, over a period of weeks. The boy was proud of the serial amputations, which his parents initially failed to notice. “When we talked about it, he was very straightforward,” Frick recalls. “He said: ‘I want to be a scientist, and I was experimenting. I wanted to see how the cat would react.’ ”

In another famous case, a 9-year-old boy named Jeffrey Bailey pushed a toddler into the deep end of a motel swimming pool in Florida. As the boy struggled and sank to the bottom, Bailey pulled up a chair to watch. Questioned by the police afterward, Bailey explained that he was curious to see someone drown. When he was taken into custody, he seemed untroubled by the prospect of jail but was pleased to be the center of attention.

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Waschbusch cited one study that compared the criminal records of 23-year-olds with their sensitivity to unpleasant stimuli at age 3. In that study, the 3-year-olds were played a simple tone, then exposed to a brief blast of unpleasant white noise. Though all the children developed the ability to anticipate the burst of noise, most of the toddlers who went on to become criminals as adults didn’t show the same signs of aversion — tensing or sweating — when the advance tone was played.

The most interesting part of this story to me is that psycopathic behavior is largely hereditary, and it seems in the case of the boy they followed here the person most able to understand and help him was his father — precisely because his father also had trouble with social conditioning as a child.

The most interesting part of this story to me is that psycopathic behavior is largely hereditary, and it seems in the case of the boy they followed here the person most able to understand and help him was his father — precisely because his father also had trouble with social conditioning as a child.

"Hereditary" can have differing components, though - genetic, or as you say above, social learning. I'm fairly sure I've read of at least one serial killer who fit the criteria for psychopathic tendencies who had an entirely unremarkable upbringing - raised as the youngest of three children (2 older sisters) and both parents, no blips in their childhood or adolescence. These are the ones for which it's difficult to pin down causes.

The thing is, many many psychopaths as noted aren't killers and don't end up in prison. There's nothing inherently evil or wrong with being one as long as you recognize what society has deemed "right" and "wrong" and accept the consequences of one's actions.

There's nothing inherently evil or wrong with being one as long as you recognize what society has deemed "right" and "wrong" and accept the consequences of one's actions.

Except that psychopaths tend not to do this - either recognise 'right or wrong', or respond to consequentialist reasoning.

I think it's getting them to understand that rationally it's in their best interest to follow the rules of society. That's what the father in the article was trying to teach his son.

Most people just have instinctive emotions that hurting others is bad. For instance the kid chopping off a cat's tail systematically over several weeks. I would think most people (myself included) instantly have an almost nauseous feeling thinking about that — the visual image is almost paralyzing.

It's a similar dilemma to pedophiles. Most people have an instinctual desire to protect children, but some people are wired differently (wrongly?) and see them as sexual objects.

Hopefully they can arrive at an understanding that they have a mental illness that cannot be cured, but that they need to not act on it.

More as data than analysis, I have two childhood memories that bear on the subject.

First, when I was five I went walking at night with the twelve year old son of friends my parents were visiting. When we approached a couple of people on a dark street he started firing a pistol, a starter’s gun with blanks but very loud and producing a good bit burning powder. He was ecstatic afterwards. Seven years later he shot a girl and her boyfriend and then killed a police officer before being himself killed. Just my impression, but I’d say psychotic from early on.

Also, when reading in the newspaper about a thirteen year old that calculatingly shot another boy and learning he wouldn’t face the death penalty, I distinctly recall mulling the fact that I, as a then juvenile, had a license to kill. Looking back, this was a rather dangerous thought for an immature brain.

Up to about the age of 5 or so, they're the very definition of it. Even then, they don't really grow out of it fully until 9 or 10. Despite whatever the newspapers are smoking this month, it would be impossible to diagnose under the age of 5, because it would fall under the guise of "normal behaviour" for a toddler. My 2.5 year old thinks people going "Ow!" is hilarious.

Up to about the age of 5 or so, they're the very definition of it. Even then, they don't really grow out of it fully until 9 or 10. Despite whatever the newspapers are smoking this month, it would be impossible to diagnose under the age of 5, because it would fall under the guise of "normal behaviour" for a toddler. My 2.5 year old thinks people going "Ow!" is hilarious.

Nonsense. Empathy begins to develop well before 5. Are very young children inconsistent at it? Well sure, along with everything else. Psychopaths are consistently without empathy.

Intelligent adult sociopaths are fascinating... they don't just lack empathy, many have grandiose fantasies, extremely inflated self image, see themselves as perfectly altruistic beings, etc. There's a lot of overlap with narcissism. Maybe because what keeps you from indulging in self deception is a concern for people nearby.

There's nothing inherently evil or wrong with being one as long as you recognize what society has deemed "right" and "wrong" and accept the consequences of one's actions.

Except that psychopaths tend not to do this - either recognise 'right or wrong', or respond to consequentialist reasoning.

Ohh, yea. They just don't get it that one is morally responsible for consequences of their actions which one could foresee. I literally seen someone describe it as "bunch of people too stupid to understand the fallacy of appeal to consequences" when confronted about potential consequences of his statements. The guy just doesn't understand that if something happens as a consequence of his actions, which he was informed about and had all reasons to expect, he'll be held morally, and likely, legally responsible, irrespective of whenever he himself wanted those consequences to occur. Or actually, he may understand he'll be held responsible but he sees this as stupid and fallacious.

Do all "adult" psychopaths manifest their lack of empathy as children? Are some really good at hiding it early, or perhaps their parents are so bad they dont' even notice?

Not all criminal psychopaths had bad parents, and as mentioned a couple of times earlier, children frequently display behaviours on the fringe of psychopathic tendencies anyway.

Also, lack of empathy or concern for others won't, per se, land someone in jail. There is a plenty of scammers that stay on the right side of the law, selling some non working remedies, talking people into non vaccinating, and the like - the sort of things that are not illegal but which normal people just can not do.

Glibness/superficial charm Grandiose sense of self-worth Pathological lying Cunning/manipulative Lack of remorse or guilt Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric) Callousness; lack of empathy Failure to accept responsibility for his or her own actions

One thing I do like about that show is they make you think about hard questions/concepts (i.e. endings left unresolved or with bitter resolutions). RE the OP: I'm so glad that my toddler is at least showing signs that she appears to be empathic (no concern about hereditary conditions though). I have no idea what I would do if she turned out to have psychopathy/ASPD.

Again, at what point in child development would children reasonably be expected to empathise? I'd imagine at quite a young age, to be honest, but I don't know for sure.

To take a guess maybe childern start empathising at three to five? But I'm not a child development expert.

Try 9 months. A 9 month old is able to fake laughs and cries to elicit a desired response from others, as well as refuse things she actually wants, just because someone else wants them to have it. All these behaviours require some degree of empathy.

By two years, they have it down to an art. My two year old is a lauded professional in this particular field.

My former supervisor mentioned that her son, when 2-3, would practice tantrums.